Monitoring of Stiffness Estimation for Tomato During Storage Period

Abstract

The quality assessment through stiffness or firmness is widely used to identify the maturity of fruits and vegetables. Most of assessment method are destructive and no cost effective. This study was done to develop a stiffness estimation for tomato during storage period by using acoustics method. This project involved the usage of modern tools such as Arduino and LabVIEW where both of them were used to controls and regulate the data collected from a buzzer that produced sinusoidal sound wave. The time taken for the sound wave to reach the microphone were recorded as it was considered as the important factor in determining the stiffness factor, S, alongside the changing mass and diameter of the tomato during its storage period. At the end of the project, it was shown that the stiffness value of the tomato decreases in hand as the day progress. Furthermore, the correlation of the parameters was also calculated in which R2 value between stiffness and weight was finalized at 0.8993, with equation of y = 379.45 × – 40.321. The findings had successfully proved that the parameters involved in the research are greatly related.